Awuor Onyango, Mal Muga & Namikoye Wanjala

VISIBILITY IS A TRAP (Kenya)

In a formal act of autonomy, Awuor Onyango, Mal Muga and Namikoye Wanjala decided to defy the regulations of the call for single projects and applied as a group with three aesthetically very different projects addressing questions of visibility and queer solidarity. In Onyango’s sovereign low angle shots the glowingly painted Black female body is digitally distorted, clothed in expanding textures and wearing face applications to navigate through issues of hyper-visibility, power structures and vulnerability. Wanjala’s dynamic long exposure shots in black and white play with the abstraction of the body, quite literally shying away from exposure. Three works that show how versatile questions of bodily autonomy and hypervisibility can be artistically transposed while sharing similar cultural contexts.
Awuor Onyango, Mal Muga und Namikoye Wanjala entschieden sich gegen die Regularien des Open Calls und reichten drei ästhetisch sehr unterschiedliche Serien als ein Projekt ein. Sie verbindet die Frage nach Sichtbarkeit und queerer Solidarität. Onyangos thronende Untersichten zeigen einen Schwarzen, weiblichen Körper vor dunklem Hintergrund. Er ist digital verzerrt, leuchtend beschichtet, gehüllt in sich ausweitende Textile und trägt Gesichtsapplikationen, um sich im Spannungsfeld von Hypersichtbarkeit, Machtstrukturen und Verletzlichkeit zu verorten. Mugas Subjekte suchen gegenseitige Nähe und Fürsorge, während sie Stricke der Sexualisierung und Brandmarkung auf sich tragen. Wanjalas dynamische Langzeitbelichtungen in schwarz-weiß spielen mit der Abstraktion von Körpern, die sich ganz buchstäblich der Ablichtung entziehen. Drei Serien, die zeigen, wie unterschiedlich Fragen nach körperlicher Autonomie und Hypersichtbarkeit aus einem ähnlichen, geteilten kulturellen Kontext künstlerisch transferiert werden.

Natalia Różycka

Love by Natalia Różycka brings the subtle and fluid shades of queer relationships to life. Even though Różycka shows abstract and fluid shapes and forms, the work is narrative.

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Michael Young

Michal Young plays with the vintage iconography of a gay erotic gaze that shaped Young’s own coming of age times in the late 80s and 90s. One collage shows two fragmented excerpts of vintage gay calendars in a subtle interplay of positive and negative space.

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Irina Dmitrovskaya

Irina Dmitrovskaya investigates views on her own sexuality, othered as queer sexuality from the outside. She shows an interplay of closeness and distance, of fragmentation and framing.

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Gökhan Tanrıöver

Evidence of My Sexual Misdemeanor is a precise and conceptual photographic dissection of the experience of forced visibility. The Turkish military forces gay men to out themselves in a, by definition, hostile environment.

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Sara Davidmann

Sara Davidmann takes a narrative approach and works with sentimental and personal found footage. She tells the story of K, a hidden trans biography in her own family history.

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Awuor Onyango, Mal Muga & Namikoye Wanjala

In a formal act of autonomy, Awuor Onyango, Mal Muga and Namikoye Wanjala decided to defy the regulations of the call for single projects and applied as a group with three aesthetically very different projects addressing questions of visibility and queer solidarity.

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Margaret Liang

Margaret Liang’s subjects, including the artist, claim their space with a calm yet determined focus. Instruments of creating a self-determined body image appear as highly stylised icons of resolution.

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Alien

Alien’s Bodybuilders are living and breathing artworks. Alien gives a bright and vivid exclusive into queer performance cultures from the UK.

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Asafe Ghalib

Asafe Ghalib’s work sets a powerful stage for an intersectionally discriminated against community. Ghalib’s expressive monochrome portraiture is warm and dramatic.

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